Bedeviled S.F. Elections Dept. short of absentee ballots / Not again -- new S.F. voting oddity pops up / Absentee ballots in short supply

Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Friday, February 8, 2002

2002-02-08 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- The San Francisco Elections Department, already on the defensive for a series of recent missteps, has come up with an unusual solution to a shortage of absentee ballots -- voters are marking their choices on photocopies, and workers will transfer the results to real ballots when they're available.

The latest problem stems from a printing snafu that is out of San Francisco's control. Critics, however, raised questions yesterday about whether the integrity of the March 5 election had already been compromised.

"Oh boy, that really invites problems," said Ross Mirkarimi, spokesman for Harry Britt's campaign for the Assembly. "The more layers and steps you add to the elections process only invites more suspicion."

State elections officials say everything is on the up-and-up, and note that two other counties in California are doing the same thing as San Francisco.

But San Francisco's Elections Department has been under intense public scrutiny, and anything out of the ordinary draws attention. Secretary of State Bill Jones found problems with the vote count in the November 2000 election. Questions also were raised about ballot security in last fall's election, although no wrongdoing was uncovered.

Supervisor Mark Leno, who is running against Britt in the Assembly's 13th District, asked Jones' office earlier this week to observe San Francisco's election next month.

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Now comes the snag with absentee ballots. Because there are so many local and state races going before voters, most people in San Francisco will be marking three ballots. People who opted to vote early at City Hall this week were handed two original ballots and one that was photocopied.

The printer couldn't get all the originals printed on time, forcing city officials to come up with a backup plan: Have voters mark photocopies and then use elections workers to transfer the votes to the real ballots by hand when they're available.

It just so happens that the problem ballots contain the most contentious local races, including those for public defender, assessor and Assembly.

Cindy MacKenzie, a spokeswoman for the Department of Elections, said the department would transfer the results "in a totally open process, where the public can observe it every step of the way."

MacKenzie said as of yesterday, 94 people had been given photocopied ballots. Elections workers will begin transferring the votes to real ballots Feb. 26. They won't be counted until after the polls close on election day.

Jeff Sheehy was one of the voters who picked up the photocopied ballot at City Hall. He was troubled when he saw it.

"My vote is going to be revoted -- marked by someone else -- in an election where there might be close races," Sheehy said. "It's scary."

Procedures will be in place to assure that the accuracy is checked and double-checked, MacKenzie said.

Alfie Charles, spokesman for the secretary of state's office, which oversees elections in California, said San Francisco was handling the ballots correctly.

"They are required to provide the ballots to the voters, so the copying of a ballot card, and the transferring of the vote to the real ballot card, is the proper way to do it," Charles said.

What's unfortunate, he said, is that the Department of Elections did not alert the public of the problem from the get-go.

"We would have recommended that they publicly announce their situation and let people know what's happening before the voting began," Charles said. He added that San Francisco elections officials had not alerted his office of the problem, either.

Mono and Mariposa counties also are missing some of their absentee ballots.

All three counties contracted with the same printing company, Sequoia Voting Systems. Hugh Webb, vice president of the company's printing division, said he hoped to get San Francisco its remaining ballots by Saturday.